Slashdot Mirror
Are CRTs History?
DreamWheezer asks: "I work on a medical imaging program that uses CrystalEyes for high resolution true color stereoscopy. This program requires high resolution high frequency true color CRTs. Very recently, a vendor trend has developed: almost all are dropping out of the CRT market in favor of LCDs. Unfortunately, LCDs cannot render high resolution page sequential stereoscopy. The vendors have said that autostereo LCDs are on the way in 12 to 18 months, but what can I do in the meantime? Furthermore, does this mean the end is near for CRTs?" While there does still seem to be a market for CRTs, it seems to be dwindling to a narrow niche. Are LCDs ready to take over as the primary computer display or is the retirement of CRTs, premature?
After f*cking my back lifting a 21" bugger on to my desk. I really do hope they are.
Deleted
I have three words for you: Cold Dead Hands!
Are you saying you have no way to get high res CRTs anymore? I somehow don't believe that. The medical market is pretty big and profitable, I hardly think vendors would completely drop CRTs if there is no replacement available yet.
*The vendors have said that autostereo LCDs are on the way in 12 to 18 months, but what can I do in the meantime?*
Find another vendor that wants to trade your money for their CRT monitors.
Pulp Audio Weekly - Geek News and Reviews
LCDs are certianly more popular these days but CRTs are hardly dead. NEC has a massive lineup of CRTs from low end consumer models to $1000+ professional models. Viewsonic likewise has a huge lineup, though theirs don't go to quite the same level as NEC. I personally just purchased a LaCie 22" CRT (NEC makes their monitors for them).
CRTs are certianly falling in popularity, but they are by no means dead. LCDs still have flaws that are not acceptable for some appilcations. I imagine there'll still be major production of CRTs for another 5 years at least, and you'll still be able to get pro models for years and years to come.
Alpha ray sterilization.
R(k)
if i was going to chose between a 22" LCD and a 22" CRT, i'd take the CRT and upgrade my RAM or buy a big mofo of a hard drive with the spare money.
but i guess it depends on how much space you have.
sudo killall humans
Environmentally speaking CRTs are much worse than LCDs from points of view of production/disposition/power consumption
You can't handle the truth.
CRTs will still be the best monitors out there for a lot of things, especially graphics
Given the other uses for monitors, like babysitting the children and mowing the lawn, I'm glad I can still count on CRTs for graphics.
500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
I just went to Comp USA and they smashed all of their CRTs with baseball bats. There was a sign on the door that said, "From now on, only LCD monitors will be sold".
To make things worse, on the way home the Public Emergency Broadcast System sounded, and the recording mentioned that if we didn't all buy LCD monitors, they would send signals through our power grids to fry our CRTs.
/. ++
Honestly I hate LCDs. Their color reproduction on all but the most expensive monitors sucks.
Basically any MVA, IPS or Super IPS panel will render colors at least as well as any high-end CRT, and better than most mid-range CRT's (i.e. the ones most people use in their homes and offices). These panels are used in screens such as the Dell 2005FPW, which is a 20" widescreen LCD monitor that can be had for under $400 (with coupons applied).
I just get tired of hearing these same criticisms of LCD's that we've heard for the last 10 years - "their colors suck", "they're not fast enough", "their black level is bad", "they're expensive". I mean, do you go around criticizing DVD-ROM drives because they cost more than CD-ROM drives and only read at 1X? This is 2005, man. We're past all that and have been for years.
(Note that CRT's are still perfectly fine for many things, and in fact I just bought one as an HDTV. But as generalized computer monitors - and in that I'm including common applications such as design or photographic work - LCD's work as well or better than CRT's and good ones don't cost much more, if any.)
Commas can be placed anywhere, they are pauses. Maybe, he, wanted, to, sound, like, William, Shatner?
~S
In many segments of the market, CRTs are still the standard, and as long as these markets demand CRTs, there will be a supply. For example, most critical prepress, photography, and design work is still best done on CRTs, LCDs don't have sufficient gamut, color accuracy, or consistency across the entire screen compared to CRTs. So manufacturers like LaCie are producing CRTs with advanced color calibration features that are unmatched by any LCD on the market.
I'll stick with CRTs for now. I'm still using a Sony Multiscan 300sf that I bought for big money sometime around 1994, it's still in perfect shape. I don't expect any LCDs to hold up for 10 years. I first used this screen on a Mac IIcx, then on a Mac 8100/110, and now on my dual 1Ghz G4. I expect to use it when I buy a new dual G5 Mac in a few months. Hell, I expect it might still be in perfect shape when I buy a G6. Sony Trinitrons last forever. Best money I ever spent.
I don't understand this article. Is it hard to buy a high-quality CRT these days? No. Just surf over to Viewsonic or NEC. Seems like many companies are still manufacturing CRTs right now, which means they will be available from the manufacturer for at least 4 years, and could still be purchased second-hand for (I'm guessing) another 15 years. If in 15 years LCDs still don't meet your needs, I imagine it won't matter, since your particular application will have long since been replaced with something different.
Sorry, but this seems like a non-issue to me.
CRTs still deliver a few perks that LCDs cannot: Price, as the single most important; Response time without blurring (your panel may say 12ms, but that means time to turn a pixel on, not black to white and back to fully black again, which usually takes 5-10x as long); decent sync from an analog signal (getting MUCH better, but only if you turn off ClearType or the like first); Behavior of a "dead" pixel; washability (go ahead, try to thoroughly clean an LCD screen... Windex destroys them, water doesn't work and the wiping action itself will harm them, and the specialty LCD cleaning solutions that cost a fortune work marginally well but nothing like Windex-on-glass).
For now, CRTs enjoy popularity mostly for price and for the highest quality images. LCDs will catch up in both those areas over time, but if you only worry about the 18 month timescale, I'd say you have no need to fear. Looking at 5 years out, I'd worry a LOT more, but not yet.
I'm a gamer, and a game developer in training. Personally, I have found very few LCDs that I can tolerate.
My primary gripe is the depth of black - on an LCD, a pure black looks more like a dark grey, where on a CRT a black looks, well, black. Go play DooM 3 on a CRT and then on an average LCD and you'll see exactly what I mean.
Furthermore, most LCDs tend to wash colors out a bit. Taking the game Morrowind as an example, on my six year old Samsung 19" CRT, the colors are deep, saturated, and the world looks full of life. Moving to either of the two LCD displays I have (both on laptops - one Dell, one Toshiba), the game world looks like someone sprayed Chlorox on everything.
And this is without going into the blur that occurs during high end action games. It's gotten a lot better over the years (remember "dual scan" LCDs?), but it's still noticable compared to a CRT.
The only LCD's I've seen that have been acceptable to me have been some of the ones on Sharp laptops. Those give me some hope that LCDs can eventually make it to a point where I wouldn't mind using them, but for now, I'll covet my Samsung CRT. If anyone knows of any good LCDs that solve these problems though, I'd love to find out I'm wrong =)
-Amich
It's not just that they have higher resolution...
-They don't have a FIXED and lower resolution (and anything running at not-native res looks FUGLY, even with like ClearType and what not)
-CRTs have a LOT more contrast
-CRTs don't have/get dead/stuck pixels
-CRTs have a good angle of view
-CRTs don't have slow response delays (and LCD manufacturers that claim super low delays are using tricks to be able to claim those numbers)
-CRTs aren't limited to 18 (eek) or 24bit color, tend to have better color accuracy, wider gamut...
-Good CRTs have a long lifespan, not sure about LCDs
Dtiching my perfectly find 21" CRTs for 21" LCDs would cost me an arm and a leg, would also require me to buy a newer and more expensive spectrometer too.
As far as I'm concerned, that's a lot of money wasted to get inferior technology.
Oh, and for those people that only talk about electricity savings, well, why not get rid of your SUV and buy a scooter instead? You'll save a LOT of gas and money (a lot more than swtiching monitors could ever make you save)! Oh, what's that you say? It's not quite the same? Exactly. LCD isn't nearly as good as CRT either.
Unless you think your (reclaimed) desk space is worth 1000$/sq ft, or that you think LCD is better in a interior-designer standpoint, in which case I'll grant you it's a better buy for you.
///<sig
It sounds to me like your vendor is playing a little loosely with facts. There are plenty of purchase points for CRTs. I like http://www.newegg.com/ for hardware purchasing, but also check out http://www.buy.com/ and http://www.cdw.com/. Those are the major vendors, but there are tons of others out there that will sell you the high quality CRTs that you need, and won't BS you about CRTs going away. As many of the other articles are saying LCDs may be popular, but CRTs are still the better, and more cost effective, solution. My recommendation is to get a new vendor.
I'm a happy pessimist. I expect and prepare for the worst, when it doesn't happen I am pleasantly surprised.
Yes and no.
If you use a DVI connection and run at the native resolution a half-way decent LCD looks perfectly clear. Add to that antialiased fonts and you're in for a winner on the eyes.
However, at work we have analog connectors for our LCD monitors (actually, the monitors have DVI inputs but our desktops only have analog out). Even after "auto-calibrarting" the monitor like 20 times I get ghosting.
DVI on an LCD can make all the difference in the world. Most people at work don't notice the oddities experienced with teh analog connections, but some of us can. Fortunately my new work machine will have a DVI out on the video card
But if you run analog, or MOST IMPORTANTLY the non-native resolution it can look like utter garbage. DVI is pretty common on video cards now a days, and I believe it's getting more common on LCDs too.
Yes, the medical market is probably big enough to ensure that one or two players keep making CRTs. They will become specialty items, however.
Translation: They will become bloody expensive.
Although I agree with everything that you said regarding LCD's, I must point out the one negative that you missed. When comparing a good flat panel (you indicated a Dell 2005FPW) to a high-end CRT, what you fail to mention is upper end of resolution display and the ability for the CRT to look good through out the entire range of resolution that it can display. The LCD falls painfully short here.
DK
I just replaced an aging but beautiful high-end CRT, and when I started looking, I found high-quality straight-digital (i.e. DVI) LCD screens, 1280x1024 at 19" in size, sporting pixel switch rates of 8ms... For about $350.
All of the reasons to avoid LCDs are evaporating: price, smearing/update speeds, resolution...
End-to-end digital video is startlingly noticeable if you are used to CRTs, even good ones.
Really excellent LCDs are now well within the price range of what I used to pay for premium CRTs.
I don't see myself buying another CRT, pretty much ever.
Tired of Political Trolls? Opt Out!
You missed thing I hate most about LCDs and color: The color is different depending on the angle you're viewing it at. This drives me bonkers. When I'm looking at a computer screen, I want to be able to see the same things in the same colors no matter where my head is in relation to the screen.
The medical market is already "bloody expensive". Some Dome monitors and their video cards are going to cost you around $10k+ each and we need at least two for every radiological computer that we have a doctor reading images at. The license for the software is comparible. After all that, the actual cost of the computer is trivial (yet hospital admin still decides to skimp).
Just get a laser printer that prints at 3600 ppm.
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
I mean, do you go around criticizing DVD-ROM drives because they cost more than CD-ROM drives and only read at 1X?
Go to newegg.com and search for a 20" lcd monitor and then for a 21" crt monitor. I searched and the cheapest lcd was $550 and the cheapest crt was $350. Now do the same search for a dvdrom drive and a cdrom drive. The cheapest dvdrom is $21 and the cheapest cdrom is $21. Big difference . . .
Yes, when the refresh time on LCDs was 25ms or more the ghosting in games made them a less than desireable choice. Finding an LCD with a refresh time greater than 16ms these days is becoming increasingly rare, though.
I have a Dell 2005FPW widescreen LCD. It has a native resolution of 1680x1050 and a refresh time of 12ms. There is absolutely no ghosting on it whatsoever. Doom3, FarCry, HL2, et al all look and play amazing on it. I've played most of those games on a high-quality (read "Dell", "Viewsonic" or "NEC") LCD with a 16ms refresh time and have not noticed any ghosting. The higher contrast ratio, more intense brightness levels, and digital signal and color of LCDs make games look better on them than on CRTs too.
I'm certain there are exceptions to every rule and some no-name Korean brand LCD you can get at Sam's Club for cheap will probably be less than optimal in games. But, by and large, LCDs are as good as, or better, than CRTs for gaming these days.
I always have to wonder, when someone uses the "LCDs suck for gaming" argument if they have even played a game on an LCD in the past 6-12 months. If they haven't, they shouldn't comment on it.
Slashdot: Where racism againt Slashdotters is OK.
There's an amazing amount of users here who spout that /. are all MS bashers and unwashed anti-capitalist, pinko commie liberal, rhetoric, but still hang around and comment on every other thread.
My days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle...
is only 8 bits per color channel, or 256 shades.
Your eyes are capable of detecting thousands of shades of a single color.
24 bit color is not enough for serious graphics or photographic work, which is why many professionals work in 16 bit per channel. Most digital cameras today capture at 12 bit or higher.
Also that LCDs cannot display as many colors as CRT's is simply false. There are LCDs available today capable of displaying most of the Adobe RGB gamut, something which very few (and expensive) CRT's can do also.
-
I know a little something about displays ;)
-They don't have a FIXED and lower resolution (and anything running at not-native res looks FUGLY, even with like ClearType and what not)
LCDs with decent electronics dont have much of a problem with this. I suppose if you buy no-name brand, it might.
-CRTs have a LOT more contrast
Not really. The contrast ratios for good LCDs are beyond what anyone needs. Black is black, white is white.
-CRTs don't have/get dead/stuck pixels
Neither do most LCDs these days... even my laptop with its rather average display has no dead pixels. This has stopped being an issue.
-CRTs have a good angle of view
As do most decent LCDs. Lower priced CRT's still have a slight edge in this regard vs. comparable lcd classes.
-CRTs don't have slow response delays (and LCD manufacturers that claim super low delays are using tricks to be able to claim those numbers)
I've been using LCDs for the better part of 8 years now and have *never* seen this.
-CRTs aren't limited to 18 (eek) or 24bit color, tend to have better color accuracy, wider gamut...
18 bit? What LCD doesnt display 24 bit? Further, there are LCD displays that can display the Adobe RGB gamut (Eizo makes a model of it now, more are to follow). Adobe RGB CRT's are very rare and expensive. CRT phosphors age and shift color frequently enough that you need to recalibrate every week or so. LCDs don't shift as much as the only thing they have that ages is a fairly stable backlight (I recalibrate monthly)
-Good CRTs have a long lifespan, not sure about LCDs
The backlight on an LCD is typically rated in the several 10s of thousands of hours. And while CRT's slowly degrade by flickering and blurring, LCDs do not.
I switched to LCDs several years ago. The color performance is more stable and images are much sharper.
The complaints I read about LCDs on here might've been valid 8-10 years ago. Today they are not.
-
I have a Panasonic DVD player almost a decade old now, it was one of the first to have 10 bit DACs. and yes, the picture quality IS noticeable better than most, this is only part of the reason it was (at the time) nearly $1000 DVD player.
Many graphics cards now have ten bit D/A convertors. With the proper driver this means 30 bits of color resolution and yes, it does make a difference.
I'm including common applications such as design or photographic work - LCD's work as well or better than CRT's and good ones don't cost much more, if any.
I just bought a new CRT (Samsung 997DF) for $179 that runs razor sharp at 1920x1440. The cheapest LCD I'm familiar with that gets close costs $1499 from Apple (for the 23 inch model). I consider 8X to be much more. Froogle lists your Dell LCD starting at $500 for 1680x1050; nearly three times the price for two thirds the pixels.
What was that you were saying?
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
I also use stereo on SGI's Sony GDM CRT monitors and Viewsonic PF221 CRT monitors using Nuvision 3D's technology. They are about 1/3 of the price of CrystalEyes solutions and Nuvision3D glasses work with CrystalEyes stereo emitters too. The glasses are lighter too.
The problem with all these fancy schmancy LCD stereo displays is that they're made just for stereo (i.e. they look like shit if you try to use them for regular viewing, see this article). So why not get a nice CRT monitor (for no more than $600) with a larger viewable area that does regular viewing and stereo rather than an LCD that does stereo for probably more than triple the price?
Actually, performing a convergence on a color CRT isn't all that difficult ... hell, I was taught how to do that in my high school electronics class almost thirty years ago. Just stay away from the anode supply and you'll be fine. Best to perform the actual adjustment to the focusing magnets with one hand held behind your back, though, just in case. Converging a tube does take a bar-dot generator (there are a number of PC-based programs that will generate the requisite patterns, or you can buy a handheld model) and a bit of practice but it's not hard. Hardly an art, really pretty procedural, although a good magnifying glass comes in handy at higher resolutions. That and a tube of Loc-Tite to seal the rings back into position when you're done.
A few months ago I picked up a 21" Nokia CRT at a computer show: the color was pretty off but brightness was fine so I figured it just needed a little maintenance. For thirty bucks I decided to chance it. After degaussing and converging it, the display is crystal clear at 1600x1200. No doubt that was why the unit was sold off: nobody knows how to do basic monitor adjustments anymore. It was just cheaper to toss it on a landfill than fix it, even though nothing was really wrong with it.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Up to a 15" screen, it'll give you a good wallop. But as long as you don't have some condition that predisposes you to death by electrocution (pacemaker, etc). A 17" will at the very least get you to stand up straight, and pay attention. Above that, you're toast, most likely.
When I worked at CompUSA we were an apple shop for everything, including monitors. Anything less than 15" Riff would discharge into himself, rather than going to the hassle of getting out the Static Discharge tool to drain it. The one time he did a 17" screen, apparently he stood in the corner, eyes totally blank, licking his hand for almost 5min. Totally tuned out from everything. After that he did start using the discharge more often. But not all the time.
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
DVDs pack more data than a CD into the same physical space. Thus, a laser pointed at a particular amount of surface area on a DVD is going to "see" more data than the same surface area on a CD. As long as the data "seen" can be processed (within the drive, then through the interface to the motherboard), DVDs will give more data per rotation than a CD.
Short version: Anyone who avoids DVD-ROM because "16x is slower than 52x" is making a concerted effort to fit on the short bus.
Ah, CompUSA. A buddy of mine had his back to me as he was working on an iMac at his bench. He pulled the shield and one of the guys was telling him to ground the thing so he wouldn't get shocked. He somehow managed to get his hand on the metal part of the screwdriver we used for this function, which wouldn't have been a big deal as he wasn't a path to ground, but the ops manager had his arm around my buddy's shoulder, chatting it up, while holding onto the work bench frame with the other arm. They both went home for the day.
Slashdot is proof that Sturgeon's Law applies to mankind.
I think it's extremely dependent on exact model of LCD you choose. Current mid-range LCD displays seem to have none of the problems you mention except price. In particular, the one my work got me is an NEC LCD1760, which has excellent contrast, no blurring at all, and syncs perfectly (and yes, I'm still using sub-pixel rendering for fonts).
The analogue syncing was my greatest concern (because early LCDs were so incredibly crappy when running off a standard analogue video signal), and the reason I didn't switch to LCD earlier, but they seem to have it sussed. One pixel lines are one pixel exactly on the display, no fringes at all.
Except for those on a tight budget, I think there's little reason for most computer users to choose a CRT these days.
We live, as we dream -- alone....